Feeding Frenzy

by Ginger-lyn Summer, Columbus, Ohio, USA

Feeding time at our place is an exercise in chaos and futility.

We have six cats. Count 'em, six hungry beasties. To make matters more complicated, several of them are eating separate diets. Cosmo has CRF, so he has to eat the prescription k/d diet for his kidneys. He won't eat the canned stuff, so he gets the dry food with water added to it. Brando, being a slightly - ahem - hefty cat, is getting high fiber food to try to help him lose weight. And Wolfie will not eat canned food in any way, shape or form, so he always gets dry food.

They have their own plates, a set of green bowls and saucers - saucers for the canned food, bowls for the dry. I feed them dry food in the day, canned food at night, with the exceptions mentioned above. In the daytime, they tend to play "musical plates", but at night, it gets even more competitive.

For the first few minutes, they're fine. Then Brando, who eats next to Internet, lunges for Internet's plate, grabbing some canned food in his mouth, dropping a few bits as I pull him away and back to his plate.

Trill finishes, and starts looking for anybody he can harrass. Trill's expertise is in putting his paw on or in the plate or bowl, and either pulling pieces of food out, or pulling the entire dish toward him and away from the cat currently trying to eat out of the dish.

Brando has sucked his food down in record time, and is looking to see if Trill left anything before trying to intimidate the next cat.

Now my DH is stretched out on the floor, one hand trying to block Trill from eating Wolfie's food, the other trying to block Internet from eating Sabra's. Meanwhile, Brando is sitting very close to Cosmo, just in case Cosmo makes the mistake of lifting his head up from his plate.

So Cosmo has enough and walks away. Brando lurches forward like a starved tiger, and starts vacuuming Cosmo's leftover food from his dish, until I spirit it away from him.

Meanwhile, Wolfie has had it with Trill getting too close to his dish, and has walked away, leaving the rest for Trill. And Sabra has had enough of his food, and Brando has snuck his face into Sabra's plate while we were watching - who was it we were watching? No way are we taking that plate away from Brando, as he is growling at any other cat that approaches. And Cosmo is knocking over an old LP cover to find those two pieces of food that Trill knocked out of Wolfie's dish.

Why is it that the other cat's plate is always greener?

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